


Relearning Gentleness

by flowerslut



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Jalice Remix-Redux, Romance, STL-verse, Shadow to Light, fic-fic, rated for mild language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 04:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30116982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerslut/pseuds/flowerslut
Summary: It’s not something she does often, but Mary-Alice closes her eyes and has to actually focus, because if she can’t find a way for these two to get through and out of the South, somehow she knows that the Major will be stuck down here in Monterrey for longer than he’s supposed to be.She can not have that. Because she knows that if Peter gets out, so does the Major. And if Peter dies, then the Major will never be free.And everything Mary-Alice does is for him.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26
Collections: Jalice Remix-Redux 2021





	Relearning Gentleness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GirlWhoWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWhoWrites/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shadow to Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9204980) by [GirlWhoWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWhoWrites/pseuds/GirlWhoWrites). 



> If you haven't read the masterpiece that is Shadow to Light, then stop reading this and go read that first, NOW.
> 
> If you HAVE read Shadow to Light, then enjoy what very well might end up being my only submission to this weeks' Jalice Remix-Redux. Fingers crossed I can knock another one out this week.

It is two days before the pyres are to be lit when Mary-Alice pauses in her ministrations. When she isn’t entirely focused the paper tears easily in her hands. But despite this mistake, she is improving. This particular vision has snatched her attention away from her task though, and the tiny almost-crane rips down the middle. Mary-Alice frowns and lets the paper fall to the dirt beneath her folded legs.

The curious scene in her mind has fully distracted her, and now Mary-Alice needs to _think_.

The sound of a short laugh catches her attention and she turns to where Charlotte is up in the rafters, Peter sitting at her side, grinning at his companion as she moves to cover her mouth and stifle her giggle.

The newborns are being rather… _behaved_ this afternoon, and Mary-Alice isn’t the only one taking advantage of the relative peace to set her mind on something other than their next campaign.

She hasn’t been blind to Peter’s obvious affections toward Charlotte. The fact that the Major hasn’t figured it out is baffling to her. But it is dangerous. Mary-Alice knows this without a second thought. And she knows _Peter_ knows this, too. That if Maria knew he was holding these affections for a random newborn then they would both be torn into pieces and fed into the fires she knows the Major is set to light come tomorrow night.

She stares at the pair, but eventually Charlotte realizes that tiny Mary-Alice is watching and the grin falls off her face so fast it’s almost comical. She doesn’t look away until Peter also looks down, and fixes her with a peculiar look.

She might not be a threat to them, but Mary-Alice knows that her reputation is growing. She’s been with them now for as many years as Peter was with them when the Major brought her into this life, and she knows the years spent earning her life with each year haven’t left him completely blind to what she is apparently capable of.

But as long as the others believe her gift is for herself only, then she is safe.

Still, he stares down at her strangely, and Mary-Alice looks back toward the piles of dirty paper scattered around her sitting form. Delicately, she picks another piece up and begins to fold.

Peter’s desire to take Charlotte and run certainly changes things.

She will not stop them. And she knows that the Major won’t either.

Peter is an interesting character in that sense. He is the only person alive that the Major would break the rules for, including herself. (She tries not to let this particular fact sting, but it does. Even knowing that his kind smiles she used to see in her future _were_ , once upon a time, for her. Nothing about that is soothing to her, now.)

She isn’t in the business of figuring out ‘why’ certain things work the way they do, but Mary-Alice knows that it’s imperative that Peter makes it out alive. And she knows that Charlotte’s fate has now also gotten tangled up in that equation, and she’s a little perturbed.

Mary-Alice sees the Major only once more over the next two days, and it’s to fetch Peter.

She doesn’t miss the look Peter shoots at Charlotte’s unaware form, but she knows the Major does.

Mary-Alice corners the girl once the men are out of sight. Thankfully, the newborns are distracted with the announcement that they’ll be receiving more one-on-one training from the Major, and Mary-Alice can almost feel the adrenaline in the air as the touch of excitement the Major left them with settles fully into their bones.

“Do not hesitate,” Mary-Alice speaks and Charlotte startles, turning and staring blankly at her. But Charlotte is too stunned to reply, so she keeps talking. “Whatever you do, do not hesitate. Do you understand?”

It’s the most she’s ever said to her, and Charlotte is still staring at her like she doesn’t understand, and maybe she doesn’t. Mary-Alice knows she isn’t stupid; she keeps to herself when Peter’s not around and is smart enough not to be caught off guard by one of the other newborns. But still, Charlotte simply stares at her, a frown forming on her face, and when Mary-Alice steps closer, she flinches back.

“I mean it. Do exactly as he tells you.”

Mary-Alice disappears swiftly after that. Seconds later, Peter is in the barn and beckoning the first newborn to come with him.

It’s the beginning of the end.

It isn’t until there are four of the newborns left, Charlotte included, when a serious of visions almost sends her straight out the back door of the barn.

Damnit to _hell_. There is movement north of Laredo, straight in the path of where Peter is planning on fleeing. If he takes Charlotte and leaves now, they will both end up in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and their bodies will be ash before the dawn rises.

It’s not something she does often, but Mary-Alice closes her eyes and has to actually _focus_ , because if she can’t find a way for these two to get through and out of the South, somehow she knows that the Major will be stuck down here in Monterrey for longer than he’s supposed to be.

She can not have that. Because she knows that if Peter gets out, so does the Major. And if Peter dies, then the Major will never be free.

And everything Mary-Alice does is for him.

Charlotte has been casting curious glances her way for the past couple hours now, as Peter takes turns coming into the barn and beckoning another one forward. One by one the newborns leave the barn, but only Mary-Alice knows why they aren’t coming back.

Eventually she is up and pacing, because she knows that she has to do something. She can not let them both die and she can not watch the Major’s only hope at freedom slip between her fingers. So, she tightens her fist, and makes her decision.

She has to time it perfectly, so seventeen seconds after Peter has come for Charlotte, leaving Mary-Alice well and alone in the barn, she turns and bolts out the back door.

She turns and runs, and then pauses again, waits, turns once more, and runs as fast as her legs will carry her.

Maria will notice that she is gone before the Major even comes back to report that both the newborns _and_ Peter are dead. Which is a lie that Maria will not pick up on, because she will instead demand to know where his shadow is, and the confusion and the hurt that Mary-Alice sees flicker across his handsome face sits so heavy in her that she is afraid that she will fall apart if she doesn’t focus.

It’s his shock, displayed so plainly on his face, that saves his life.

Instead she shoves the awful vision away and runs as fast as her legs can take her.

But Peter is fast and he is smart and Mary-Alice knows that he is convinced that she has been sent by Maria to finish the job.

“Stop,” she screams as she finally begins to approach them. If she doesn’t get them to stop and listen within the next twenty miles, then all _three_ of them are as good as dead. “Wait!”

Although she isn’t as fast as Peter she is faster than Charlotte, so when she eventually catches up, Peter throws himself in between the two women and growls, ready to pluck her head off of her shoulders at the first sign of aggression.

“Stop,” Mary-Alice demands, and there is a fierceness in her tone that makes Peter actually flinch backward. She’s trying to channel as much of the Major as she can with both her stance and her confidence, and if he recognizes his friend in her expression she tries not to think about it too much. Because she’s turning and beckoning them to follow. “If you go that way you’ll run right into Paolo’s scouts.”

“How can I trust you?” Peter is still standing protectively in front of Charlotte, who is clinging to him fiercely, and Mary-Alice wants to roll her eyes.

“If anyone is in trouble, it’s me. The Major told her you two were dead. Now, either you follow me or you die.” But she sees the hesitation persisting and she stomps her foot. There is no time to convince him. But she knows that she has to or there is no more options left for them.

For the Major.

“You tried to convince him, and he wouldn’t listen,” she speaks quickly, furious over the fact that she has to lay her gift bare, and reveal herself so. “You spoke to him three times that I saw, and he even checked with Maria, but ‘there were no memorable ones from this crop’ so they all had to die.”

“How do you know this?” He looks almost mortified, but then his glare returns and his stance is even lower.

“I’m not a spy,” she almost resents the accusation, “and I’m not going to lead to back to Maria. I’m here to lead you _North_ ,” she spits the word out furiously. “If you die, then that’s _it_. If you die, there’s no hope,” the words almost make her deflate.

The realization dawns on Peter, and before he can vocalize his next few words— _“Your gift… it’s different than you’ve let us believe.”—_ Mary-Alice snaps, “Yes, it is. Now hurry.”

The trio of vampires turns east, and Mary-Alice leads them away from Laredo, away from Monterrey, and away from the only world she’s ever known.

* * *

It’s easy to find them a safe route. Mary-Alice turns and snaps at Peter time and time again every time he demands she slow her speed and proceed with caution.

Eventually, after a day and a half of running, she indulges and allows the two to stop and gather themselves.

She knows he wants to talk to Charlotte and explain what the hell he’s done, and why, but Mary-Alice is so agitated that she doesn’t want to stop and think. But quickly, she’s left alone while the pair wander off to speak somewhere more privately.

Mary-Alice stumbles into a stream. It’s shallow enough that she can see the bottom, but it’s deep enough that when she lays down on her back the water swallows her whole. She lets the water dull her other senses as she closes her eyes and, against all better judgement, opens her mind.

Maria’s trust in the Major is shaken, but he is safe and that is what is important. Mary-Alice’s defection is seen as the one true mark on the night, and Maria is furious at her abandonment. The Major’s reactions to Maria’s theories are dull, and eventually he looks disinterested enough that she yells at him, dismissing him outright.

Mary-Alice knows Maria well enough to be able to tell when she’s trying to pick a fight. But the Major just leaves.

It isn’t until the door closes behind him that his face gives way and his shattered expression stays with her.

* * *

It doesn’t take long for her to prove to Peter and Charlotte that the North is not the danger that Maria has led them all to believe it is. They don’t _truly_ believe her until Mary-Alice sets up a bit of a trap, and when they stumble across a pair of nomads, she has to be the one to play peacemaker.

The task of talking to these two women is so goddamn foreign that she knows that it isn’t Peter’s defensive stance or low growls that are being noted, but the stilted, strange way Mary-Alice goes about greeting the pair, and introducing herself.

Manners and niceties are something she’s never needed to bother with before, and now, she’s afraid that she just… doesn’t know what to do.

She knows that both Peter and Charlotte want to talk to her properly. To sit her down and pick her brain and ask a thousand different little questions. But Mary-Alice doesn’t want to do any of that. So every time the urge to speak to her strikes them, she makes herself scarce.

Eventually they corner her after a hunt.

“He’s okay?”

Mary-Alice doesn’t look up from where she’s finishing burying the body of the man she’d drained. She curses inwardly and stares at the way the dirt crusts beneath her fingernails.

“He’s alive.” Her voice sounds as hollow as his eyes look in these visions. Mary-Alice hesitates before she lifts her head and finally meets Peter’s eyes. She doesn’t like the look of pity he’s giving her, but what she likes even _less_ is the fact that she knows what he wants to do. “You can’t,” she shakes her head and stares back down at her hands, “at least, not yet.”

Peter makes a frustrated noise. Mary-Alice hasn’t elaborated much about her gift, avoiding those conversations as much as possible, but she knows that Peter has taken to trusting her with their small group’s decisions.

Now that he knows there is peace in their world, he wants to involve the Major.

“There will be a time, and a place for that, but it’s not yet.”

It’s not the answer he wants, but he accepts it nonetheless.

* * *

As Peter and Charlotte relax and grow closer together, Mary-Alice folds back inward, burying herself deeper and further into her own mind until all she does is watch. The Major’s future is a tangled mess, and she knows that it will continue to be so for as long as Peter wants to free him from the South, and for as long as Maria doesn’t trust him.

She’s also begun to see the Cullens again. Before, there had never been a name to give to the strange golden-eyed coven that she’d seen along with the first visions of the Major. Now, she sees them often, even when she isn’t actively looking toward them (and she rarely is) and as she watches she learns more and more about them.

There are two more among them than there used to be. And she learns their names all around the same time. Carlisle, Esme and Edward are the faces she saw before, and now Rosalie and Emmett are among them, and they are a big, strange coven, but they are happy.

“How will I know?” Peter asks her one day. He’s taken to asking her things on a whim instead of planning out what to say to her, and Mary-Alice hates how effective this strategy is at catching her off guard. Whether he has figured out the full extent of her ability is unknown to her, but he’s figured out enough that it makes her uncomfortable.

She also rarely ever speaks, so when she shrugs and continues drawing images in the dirt with her stick, she watches in her mind as he snatches it away from her and pulls the stick backward. She glares up at him before he can actually act on his impulse and break the twig in two. “What?” She snaps.

“We abandoned him for peace,” he seethes, and Mary-Alice knew that his patience with her was beginning to wear thin, but she didn’t see his tantrum happening yet. Something in her expression or her reply must have triggered this, and now she is just as frustrated. “We left him behind, and you _knew_ it was peaceful up here. We could have taken him with us.”

Mary-Alice is already shaking her head. “He wouldn’t have come.”

“Did he know about your ability? The truth?”

She doesn’t answer, because of course not.

“You knew the entire time didn’t you?” He accuses quietly, but his tone is not kind. “You knew there was an alternative and you never thought to bring it up. You, you…” and from where her attention has turned back toward her drawing—a flowering tree she’s been working on for the better part of an hour now—she can see his hands shaking at his sides. “You’re just as bad as Maria.”

The words hurt, but Mary-Alice keeps her reaction to herself. “So be it, then.”

“Why?” He demands again, and Mary-Alice can see that Charlotte has overheard Peter’s fury and has wandered close to investigate, “Why can’t we go back?”

It’s been over a year now, and Mary-Alice wants to let him go, to let him do what she couldn’t do, and free the Major from Maria’s hold on him, but she knows that it’s not time.

So, instead of repeating the same phrase over again, she closes her eyes and focuses.

Minutes later, when she opens her eyes back up, Charlotte is standing at Peter’s side as the pair stare down at her, confusion and fear displayed across their expressive faces.

“When the leaves begin to brown,” Mary-Alice stands to move, “you can go.” When she begins to walk away, she leaves her stick, and her drawing, and continues to move.

There are many things she wants to tell them. Things that she wants them to tell him for her. But a passed-along apology isn’t what she wants them to deliver to the Major.

The only thing she wants him gifted is his freedom.

Mary-Alice keeps walking, and eventually days have passed and she knows that Peter and Charlotte aren’t going to wait for her to return. Then, she sits herself back down on the ground, picks up another stick, and begins to draw again.

She traces the Major’s profile in the dirt and tries hard to avoid her visions.

They come to her anyways.

* * *

It doesn’t take her long to wander into Carlisle Cullen.

Mary-Alice doesn’t approach. Instead, she sits herself on the park bench across the street of the building that she knows he works in, and she waits.

The first hints of daylight are beginning to bloom across the horizon when he finds her.

“Are you alright?” Are the first tentative words he speaks to her when he approaches, his coat folded over his arm as he frowns in her direction. Surely, a wandering, red-eyed vampire so close to where he and his family resides is cause for concern, but when Mary-Alice looks up at his face for the first time, and sees his golden eyes, she knows that while this isn’t how she thought this first meeting would go, it’s all she has now.

She shakes her head and allows him to lead her back to his car, and then back to his home.

* * *

Mary-Alice doesn’t speak.

Other than her name, it’s really the only thing they know about her. She’s careful with her thoughts around Edward for those first few weeks, instead focusing on her past and her memories until he makes himself scarce when she’s around. Anything to avoid having to witness those.

She knows her mind isn’t the best place to be, but she wonders if there’s a version of her future where she ended up worse, and spends her time wondering if the things she’s been through are really as bad as this gentle family are beginning to believe they are.

Her scars are her most prominent feature, and paired with her size she is a walking contradiction. She is a tiny slip of a thing that survived almost two-decades of fighting in the Southern wars, and Emmett muses one day, when she’s in earshot, whether or not she’s capable of handing their asses to each of them on a silver platter.

His statement forces half of a smile out of her, and the sensation of amusement is so foreign to her that she flees the house entirely and takes up refuge in a thick patch of trees for three days. Esme finds her at the end of the third day and beckons her to return. Thankfully, the matriarch of the family doesn’t ask many questions, but Mary-Alice knows that she so desperately is craving more from the girl.

Mary-Alice doesn’t know that she has anything to offer to these people. But they are kind to her, and they provide her with clothes and a place to stay in exchange for sticking to their wretched diet, so at least she has something going for her.

She’s perched up on the couch one day when Emmett and Rosalie fly through the doors and into the room, full of happiness and laughter. They’re fresh from a hunt and a race back to the house and Mary-Alice has just finished another drawing.

Esme is full of gestures and kind words, and after watching Mary-Alice draw shapes and designs into the dirt that gathered on the porch steps, she went into town and provided the girl with pens and pencils and papers so neat that Mary-Alice almost didn’t _want_ to write on them. But eventually that is what she began to spend most of her time doing.

She draws the old maps from memory, just to know that she could still do it, and then spends days studying them, and editing them. She knows that Maria’s lands are fluctuating even still, so she creates as many versions of the maps as she can see until she runs out of paper. When Esme gifts her with more, the continues to draw.

There is an empty corner of the house that she has been allowed to store all of her scribbles and maps and sketches, and the Cullens are gracious enough to leave it all alone. They don’t dig through it and they don’t look twice at the pile over papers that grows day by day.

It’s been a few months and she knows that Emmett is harmless, so when he plops himself down beside her—the couch groaning at the force of it—she doesn’t realize how close he is until he leans in and hums.

“Who’s that?”

Mary-Alice’s pen stills.

Besides a glance here and there, and a compliment given occasionally, the Cullens usually leave her to her business. Even now, Rosalie looks a bit irritated at Emmett’s interest in Mary-Alice’s newest sketch. But then, her golden eyes wander to the paper and even she steps closer.

“I—” It’s the first word she’s spoken since the day she arrived, and she stares down at the Major’s face where she’s meticulously recreated it using nothing more than a pen and half a sheet of paper.

It hurts because he’s wearing an expression she’s never witnessed in person. This was an old expression, one from _before_. A vision of _Jasper_ , not of the Major, and suddenly the fact that these two Cullens have seen his face is unbearable for her.

She crumples it up swiftly and even when she throws it across the room she’s unsatisfied as it only carries a few feet before falling to the ground.

It hurts. _She_ hurts, she realizes as her hand grips her chest and she begins to breathe heavily, nearly gasping as the weight of what she’s done finally strikes her.

Peter’s scathing remark from several months earlier rings in her ears, and it’s all she can hear.

 _“You’re just as bad as Maria._ ”

But she’s _not_. She knows that she is different than the fire-eyed Mexican woman who would rather watch the world burn than sacrifice even an acre of land. Maria wanted power and blood and land.

The only thing Mary-Alice ever wanted was the Major.

And she’d left him behind.

“He’s gone,” she eventually says, and the dam breaks, and she scurries backward into the corner of the room, “I left him there. I abandoned him.”

But she did it for _him_ , she tells herself as she feels herself begin to crumble. She’s suddenly angry then. At herself, at Peter, at Maria. Even at Emmett and Rosalie who are standing before her, hands raised, trying to talk her down from whatever fit she’s having. But she can’t focus on their placating words.

All Mary-Alice can focus on is the Major’s empty expression as he floats through day after day, fully believing that he’s trapped down there with no escape.

And she’d just left him behind.

* * *

The truth—or, well, some of it—comes out not long after her breakdown in the sitting room.

Edward stays close to her for a while after that, and she can’t hide her visions forever.

To his credit, there is no grand explosion on his behalf when he realizes what he’s seeing. But maybe that’s because when it happens it just the two of them in the house. Edward, Mary-Alice is learning, is often prone to fits of dramatics. With no one else around but her, his reaction is uncharacteristically restrained.

The morning he finds out, he asks her quiet, simple questions, and Mary-Alice gives answers. Mental ones, but Edward accepts them for what they are.

No, the man in her picture wasn’t her mate. No, she didn’t kill him. Yes, she left him down in Mexico. Yes, she blames herself for leaving. No, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever see him again. No, it doesn’t matter. Yes, she’s serious. No, she just wants peace.

A thousands questions and a thousands answers pass between them over the course of the day, and by the time Carlisle and Esme return from their day out, they are shocked to find Mary-Alice drawing the unknown man once more. Only now, Edward sits at her side, smiling at whatever it is he sees in her head.

It’s easiest to be around Edward, she quickly decides. She doesn’t _need_ to speak when he’s there. And despite her complete avoidance of him at first, it’s far easier for her to get what she wants when he’s around. Whether it’s something as simple as a new color for her pencils, or if she feels like she needs to go hunt.

Edward makes it easier to exist in the house, and quickly she realizes she’s made a friend.

In a vision, she watches as he speaks quietly to Carlisle and Rosalie one night:

“ _Give her time,” Edward’s hands are in his pockets as he stares at Carlisle’s worried gaze. Rosalie is staring out the window, arms crossed, her own frown gracing her beautiful face. “It’s not that she doesn’t trust us but she’s… not ready. She’ll talk when she is.”_

Mary-Alice wonders if she will. She hasn’t exactly made the decision to start speaking with them, but she knows that maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s inevitable.

It isn’t that she doesn’t like the Cullens. And it isn’t that she doesn’t trust them. She does, actually. She trusts them more than she ever thought she was capable of trusting a coven of vampires. She doesn’t have to worry when her back is turned and she knows that they both respect her privacy as well as her belongings. She’s allowed to keep secrets and she’s allowed to deny them information.

When she shakes her head no she isn’t punished, and when the men wander too close she knows she isn’t going to be cornered or attacked.

Mary-Alice is sitting at Edward’s side as he plays a intricate melody on his piano, allowing her to turn his practicing into a game. She plays a few keys, and he turns it into a melody. Esme is across the room, watching the pair happily, always eagerly enjoying Mary-Alice’s willingness to ‘play’, when the vision strikes.

Edwards hands still as hers does, and the entire room falls into a thick silence as the vision plays out.

_“Will you come with us?” Peter asks the Major, his expression hopeful._

_The Major’s expression goes from angry to confused to downright bewildered over the course of only a few seconds. But there is a resolve that sinks into his features and before he’s spoken he is moving. Toward Peter. Toward a future that isn’t in Mexico. A future away from Maria’s side._

_“Okay,” his voice sounds tired, but he relents, “okay. Let’s go.”_

Mary-Alice is staring at her hand when she falls back into the present. Slowly, she presses down her index finger, as if testing out the key beneath it.

The Major is going to get out. He is going to be free. Peter has done it.

When she turns her attention to Edward—who is pointedly ignoring her attempts at restarting their little activity—he is smiling at her, his eyes wide with unconcealed joy. Slowly, he moves his hand overtop of hers, stilling it and causing the room to fall silent once more.

“It’s okay,” he speaks softly, and Mary-Alice is afraid she might start to cry if he keeps looking at her like that. “He’s out. It’s okay now.”

Esme has slowly moved herself across the room, concern etched onto her soft face, and Mary-Alice looks up at her.

“Everything alright, sweetheart?”

She nods, numb at what she’s seen, unwilling to let any type of excitement or joy build. Throughout the years of suppressing her emotions, Mary-Alice has forced her reactions to slow. But Edward is smiling at her, and Esme looks ready to sweep her into an embrace. And emotions are _okay_ here, she reminds herself firmly, as she allows her hope to plant itself firmly in her chest, steadily warming her from the inside.

“He’s out,” she repeats the words, speaking to Esme now. And she looks so overjoyed at being spoken to that when Mary-Alice sees her hesitation in her mind, she pulls herself onto her feet and carefully moves forward and into Esme’s embrace. “He’s out,” she repeats the words again, trying to make them more real with each repetition. “He got out. He’s out.”

And it feels better than she ever imagined it would.

* * *

With Mary-Alice speaking again, it brings a whole new set of problems. Because now, while she can call each of these people by their names to gain their attention, they do the same to her, and for some reason the sound of her own name coming from these people’s mouths makes her shudder and flinch.

“Is that even your name?” Rosalie asks her rudely one night. Mary-Alice looks up from the portrait she’s drawing of her and her beautiful long hair, and stares at her. “Mary-Alice,” she repeats it, as if Mary-Alice doesn’t know what she’s referring to. “Is it your real name?”

She nods. “It was written on my gown when I woke up.”

“But you don’t like it.”

Mary-Alice sets her pen down and frowns. “It’s my name.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Rosalie shrugs and leans back on the chaise. She brushes her hair over her opposite shoulder and turns her attention to a bracelet that dangles loosely. “You react like we’re going to rip a digit off every time we say it.” She sets her jewelry straight and turns her attention back across the room. “You know we don’t have to call you that if you hate it so much.”

The following week she meekly asks Edward to call her Mary, and he spreads the information quietly around the house. It doesn’t work though, and she still doesn’t enjoy the sound of it. The instant she hears one of their lips form the ‘M’, humming the first part of her name, her body involuntarily tenses. After a few days she shakes her head when Carlisle calls her Mary, and tells him that is isn’t right.

“Do you want to try Alice?” He offers, as patient and understanding as always. She looks up at him when he says it and nods, curious. “Alice,” he smiles and nods. “We can try that. See how you like it?”

“Alice,” she whispers it into the air, and somehow she knows that it’s right. “I like it, I think.”

“I like it too, Alice.” Carlisle smiles at her, and she can’t help but smile back.

The next problem they face has to do with a nameless man that the Cullens know little-to-nothing about. Even Edward doesn’t know his name. He only knows him as ‘the Major’ and recognizes him as both the reason Alice is riddled with trauma as well as the center of most of her visions.

Alice knows Edward’s offer is hesitant, the day he asks her if she wants to go looking for him.

“I don’t think he’s ready for that.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I’m the reason he didn’t get out earlier.”

It’s a conversation they’ll end up having multiple times over the next several months.

But Alice is ashamed of herself. So full of self-loathing and embarrassment that she can’t even fathom a world in which the Major will want anything to do with her.

She left on the night Peter and Charlotte abandoned him, leaving him well and fully alone to face Maria’s wrath, with no one else to turn to.

No, Peter and Charlotte fled. _She_ abandoned him. Peter went back for him. And all Alice did was run.

In no world can Alice imagine the Major wanting to see her again. And it’s an awful truth that she is forcing herself to live with.

* * *

One day, nearly four years after she arrives, she nearly knocks a painting off the wall from where she’s collided directly into it.

Emmett laughs at her, so used to her odd quirks and the way her visions sometimes steal her attention properly from her waking body, but Edward is at her side, steadying her by the elbow swiftly.

“What is it?” Rosalie sounds worried, and Alice can just barely hear the sound of her scolding Emmett before she approaches, too. It’s not often that her visions force her to completely disregard her surroundings; if she ran into the wall hard enough to cause Rose to worry, then she must really have been caught off guard.

But Alice can’t verbalize anything about what she’s just seen.

It’s unexpected. It’s confusing.

It’s too goddamn good to be true.

“He’s looking for you,” Edward whispers the fact out loud, because Alice knows that she hardly understands what they’ve both seen in her mind. “He wants to see you.”

“Why?” She croaks the word out, and old hope begins to burn within her. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but it’s true.

Somehow Peter and Charlotte have pinpointed the two causes of the Major’s depression.

First, is that his ability is making it nearly impossible to feed. The humans’ emotions are detrimental to him, and in their final moments their horror and terror and pain and grief stick to him firmly, unrelenting in their hold of him even days after he’s fed.

Second, is that she is out there somewhere, potentially alone, and the Major wants to see her.

Dread snuffs out the hope building inside of her swiftly.

The idea that he is mad at her betrayal is prominent in her mind. Perhaps he wants to dole out some sort of retribution for her betrayal of Maria and himself. But even as this fear crawls its way across Alice’s vision, she knows it isn’t true.

Because in her head, he’s _eager_ to see her. Gone is the emptiness from his eyes, now replaced with an excitement she doesn’t quite recognize.

“He wants to see me…” She whispers the words that sounds too good to be true, and it feels like the future is finally something she can look forward to again.

* * *

Carlisle has given everyone else strict instructions to let Alice go alone, but even as he demands that Emmett and Edward stay behind, the two brothers share a look and Alice knows that even if they won’t stick close, they’re still going to follow her.

Edward is confident that things will go smoothly, but Alice has already heard enough of Emmett’s complaints, both in person and through her visions. He doesn’t want his ‘little sister’ wandering off on her own to meet ‘some bastard who probably isn’t good enough for her anyways’.

 _That_ was a fun vision to see, and despite it being a ridiculous sentiment Alice was oddly touched by the ferocity of his protectiveness. It’s the only reason she doesn’t rat both him and Edward out.

And she knows that Edward wants to be close ‘just in case’.

Carlisle knows that the trio of vampires currently seeking their new member out are not vegetarians the same way they all are, and he requests that Alice meet them outside of city limits. She nods her agreement wholeheartedly, and when she sees the vision of her catching them just outside of Grand Rapids, she swears she begins to feel _nervous_.

It’s a bizarre reaction to have, mainly because she’ll know what happens before it does, but also because any type of elevated emotion throws her off-kilter a little nowadays. After a couple of decades of forcing back her feelings, trying to allow herself to experience things is still an uphill battle.

She’s getting better though. She knows this.

But despite what she knows her nerves hold strong and she leaves hours early to go and sit in the spot that she knows Peter and Charlotte and the Major will cross.

Once she sets herself up creek-side, she turns back toward the way she came and shouts, “I know you’re there.” Then, she pauses. “Either get over here or leave. I don’t want them thinking you’re a threat.”

After a couple of minutes the two boys come into view. Edward is frowning and Emmett is grinning. “It’s hard _not_ to see me as a threat,” he boasts as he flexes, walking toward her and sitting himself on the ground beside the rock she’s perched herself up on.

Alice rolls her eyes but smiles, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. She doesn’t even care that they’re there, despite the fact that they’ve gone against Carlisle’s wishes. Their presence there will help keep her mind of the inevitable scenario she’ll be finding herself involved in soon.

A scenario she isn’t sure she’s ready for yet.

But there hasn’t been a day that has gone by that the Major hasn’t been the focus of all of her thoughts.

A part of her wonders if he ever thought of her, and then she shakes that thought from her head. It would do no good to take these hopes she’s been delicately cradling and get them up any higher than they already were. With her luck, they’ll come crashing down the instant the Major sees her and decides to move on.

The hours tick down to minutes, and the minutes turn into seconds.

She can hear, in the near distance, the sound of three sets of feet coming to an abrupt stop. It appears that they weren’t expecting her to come and meet them. She doesn’t see them for several seconds, but when they slowly make their way toward them, Alice’s eyes lock directly onto the Major’s lithe form as they move through the woods towards them.

He looks just as she remembers. He is painfully handsome, and it almost hurts to look at him, with his blond hair falling messily around his scarred face. But his eyes are also locked on hers. They aren’t bright red like Peter’s and Charlotte’s and that leaves her with a question she quickly answers for herself; he’s trying to go longer without feeding.

It’s both dangerous as well as heartbreaking. Because she _knows_ why he’s refraining.

The Major looks good though, despite the dark splotches beneath his eyes and his messy hair. He’s wearing cleaning clothes; he’s just… cleaner, overall. Peter and Charlotte look much the same, and she doesn’t need to have the Major’s ability to know that they are relieved to see her.

But their eyes flicker to the two men that stand at Alice’s side and they stop, several meters away on the other side of the creek.

She knows that the men are sizing each other up, and she waits for them to finish, instead taking the opportunity to take note of every new scar that is visible to her across the Major’s body.

Of course, Emmett breaks the silence.

He whistles low. “Shit, you’re good Alice,” and when she turns her attention toward him, he’s studying the Major’s face, looking impressed. “He looks just like all those drawings.”

Her humiliation is so acute that she can’t help but gape at him for a split second before her jaw snaps shut and she’s resisting the urge to tackle him. Of course, Edward comes to her rescue and slaps him upside the head. He must also see something in one of their heads, because swiftly he’s excusing himself and Emmett from the clearing, and they’re bickering the entire way back into the forest.

Alice is still so embarrassed that she can’t even find herself relieved when they back off. And when she looks up and watches as Peter says a few quiet words to the Major, both he and Charlotte quietly turn and disappear back into the thick woods as well.

The privacy should be appreciated, but Alice’s nerves are now at an all-time-high, and her embarrassment is hard to get under control.

She doesn’t know what to say. There’s so much she wants to say but she has no way of going about it besides just blurting out an apology that she knows he won’t accept.

“They said you helped them,” the Major stars talking, and as he speaks he slowly moves closer. He’s careful not to encroach on her space, and Alice can see him trying to gauge how close it too close. Eventually, he stops a few feet away. “That you’re the only reason they made it out.”

Alice swallows her nerves and nods twice. “Paolo’s people would have torn them to shreds north of Laredo.”

“That’s why you went, to help them.”

Alice nods. “I—” and she forces herself to power through her hesitation, “I knew if Peter died, you’d never get out.”

“Out of the south?” Alice nods and finds herself looking away. “Your gift really isn’t just for you, is it?” His words are spoken so softly, but Alice can hear the hurt in his tone and it breaks her heart.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually whispers the words that have been heavy on her mind for years now. “I… I didn’t… I should have—”

“No,” the Major is shaking his head, “you did the right thing. I… I can’t say what I would have done.” The ‘to you’ is unspoken, but they both hear the words loud and clear. “You made the right choice.” He is firm with his words and Alice can only nod.

“Okay,” it’s barely a whisper, but she knows she needs to acknowledge his words in order for him to move on from the topic.

“And you,” he steps closer and looks like he wants to move even closer, but he hesitates. “You’re alright?” His eyes trail back toward where Emmett and Edward wandered off. “You’re… safe?”

Her dead heart nearly leaps in her chest at the care in his tone, and god she wants so badly to be able to look back up at his eyes, but she’s terrified about getting her hopes up with any of these interactions. She wants so much, and is afraid that he isn’t willing to give her anything more than this conversation.

“I’m safe,” she nods, and her lips almost twitch upward into a smile. Finally, she forces herself to meet his eyes again. He’s so much closer to her than he was a minute ago, and the scent of him alone makes her chest ache.

She’s _missed_ him, she realizes painfully. And not just the Jasper she saw in her head before everything turned sour and went sideways. She missed the Major, too. They’re both the same person, she knows this now. But combining the two of them together in her head is going to take a little bit getting used to.

“They called you ‘Alice,’” he notes, his mind also running along a similar track to hers. “Is that what you prefer now, or what they want to call you?” His eyes are apprehensive as they flicker back behind her.

“No, it was,” she swallows, hesitating. “I wanted to be called that.”

“Just Alice?” She nods, and when the corner of his mouth twitches, the affection that falls over her is overwhelming. “It’s nice.”

“Thank you.”

There is silence for a small period of time, and then he steps even closer. “Alice?”

“Yes, Major?”

And when he flinches back at this, she instantly regrets it. Replying like that was once a knee-jerk reaction. But she was Mary-Alice, lost and unknown and without a trace of humanity in her body. And he was the Major, the master of the battlefield, and a deadly force of nature.

“Sorry,” she apologizes before he can speak.

For a few agonizing seconds, Alice watches as he tries to form his words and figure out what he wants to say. When he settles on a decision, Alice nearly wants to cry out, because it’s too good to be true.

“Alice is who _you_ want to be, right?” This time, when he steps closer, Alice moves closer, too, anticipating the motion. There’s barely a foot between them now, and if they get any closer she’ll have to strain her neck to look him in the eye. Thankfully, he decides that this is as close as he needs to be. When she nods blankly, he continues. “I don’t want to be ‘the Major’ any longer,” he shakes his head as he speaks. “There’s too much death attached to it.”

“It reminds you of everything,” Alice says, because she understands.

“I want to be Jasper,” he speaks softly, and his eyes trace slowly over the long dress she wears. Much longer and nicer than anything she was afforded back in Monterrey. He smiles, and it’s warm and kind and as his eyes trail back up to meet her eyes, she doesn’t feel anything other than pure, unbridled joy. “I want to be something other than what I was.”

Alice nods quickly, and suddenly she’s biting back a smile because she’s so shockingly happy.

The emotion has… some sort of effect on the Maj—on _Jasper_ —because suddenly his eyes close and he sighs and looks almost relaxed where he stands before her.

When he opens his eyes he reaches forward very, very slowly, and when Alice realizes what he’s reaching for she nearly thrusts her hands into his, and when a low chuckle falls out of him, she knows that this is only the beginning, but it’s also the start of everything she’s ever hoped for.

Of everything she thought was dead and lost and gone in a pile of ash and blood in the dust of Monterrey.

“Alice,” he says her name quietly and she nearly shivers at how much she likes the sound of her new name on his lips, “I’d like to get to know you, as Alice.”

It feels odd to smile at him, but that’s what she feels like doing, so she does it. Because she’s happy. And because there is suddenly so much joy and hope flowing through her that she’s nervous it’s a bit too obvious to him how excited she is about this turn of events.

But if her emotional response is a cause of concern for him, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he smiles back.

“I’d like that very much, Jasper,” she whispers, and clings to his hands firmly. Not wanting to let go.

And it isn’t until hours later, back in the Cullen household with Peter and Charlotte and _Jasper_ at her side, that she realizes he hasn’t.

Later that night, Emmett makes a joke about Jasper never leaving, Peter scoffs at the idea of eating animals, a vision takes away Alice’s attention, and she and Edward share a quick look from across the room.

Alice grips Jasper’s hand tighter, and the future unfolds ahead of them.

**Author's Note:**

> The line from chapter two, where it explains how Mary-Alice attempts to "relearn gentleness" by learning how to fold origami, has always stuck with me. And then thanks to two playlists and one commute home, this idea was born. Written in five hours and only proof-read once, I hope its enjoyable!
> 
> Thanks for sharing such fucking incredible stories with us all the time, Lexie.  
> One day I hope to treat you to a massage or something. Because lord knows your back hurts carrying this fandom on your own. Love you!


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